Proximity beacon support (including, but not restricted to, Bluetooth beacon support) has been added to mobile phone operating systems. Beacons are transmitters that may be located near points of interest. The beacons allow passing receivers to be notified that they are near those points of interest. The beacons may be fixed or mobile depending on the application.
Proximity beacon support is available to mobile app developers through APIs (application programming interfaces) for region monitoring and proximity ranging. Region monitoring enables mobile apps to register proximity triggers that call back when the mobile operating system detects a particular beacon is within range of the mobile device. Ranging enables the measurement of the mobile device's proximity to that beacon. Mobile applications that have exited or are paused in the background can be awoken by the operating system's region monitoring function to perform actions that are relevant to the phone being near a particular location. These actions include providing special offers or other notices of nearby products or attractions, triggering analytical or audit functions, such as to record the presence of a device in a secure part of a research facility, or to enable of disable functions such as wireless access for phones being used in the vicinity of a driver's seat in a car.
There are a number of problems associated with proximity beacon systems. One problem is that that the beacons themselves can be inconsistent in triggering region monitoring events. Additionally, the “beacon based ranging” used to estimate location can be inaccurate. The ranging functions rely on techniques such as received signal strength indication (RSSI), which are very susceptible to interference, signal attenuation and multipath effects. These inaccuracies become compounded; so the further the mobile device is from a beacon the less accurate the proximity measurement is. In addition, the cost of purchasing the large numbers of beacons in a venue can become onerous and the cost of the labor to deploy and maintain the beacons, including replacing batteries periodically, can become prohibitive. This restricts the number of beacons that can be economically deployed.
Lastly, the operation of ranging functions tends to consume a significant amount of power based on much more intense use of the radio used to monitor the beacons. This depletes the life of the mobile device's battery. Thus, there is a need for a method and apparatus for delivery location based alerts without the use of proximity beacons.